If you begin with the premise that the abstraction of data center resources into software representations (such as virtual machines) decouples IT workloads from the physical systems they rely on, then it makes sense to reconsider the way you buy and build your data centers.
Simply having a uniform (or near-uniform) software layer between the physical infrastructure and your compute workloads means you can begin to assemble a homogeneous physical infrastructure to support a heterogeneous abstract IT environment.
(Credit:
CNET News)
No more custom-tailoring your systems for each application, only to find those systems difficult to alter to either meet the needs of a new workload or the changing needs of the existing one.
No more adding a unique network card to each server to support a shared management plane, just to find it locks you into that management architecture long after something better comes along.
No more trying to figure out which servers have storage area networking and which have local disk...they all can have both--making it much easier to reuse the physical system for workloads that require either one.
This is not a spiel for any one vendor or even for a group of competitive vendors. Instead, focus on what this evolution means to the way you will buy and operate enterprise computing equipment in the coming years. While the highly customized computing systems of our siloed past meant buying "pieces/parts" was the logical way to go, its been a little like buying a car by getting the engine from Honda, the chassis from Ford, and the wheels from Costco. You could probably build a pretty decent ride, assuming you could get it all to work together.
... Read moreI wrote not long ago about the various disciplines that data center operations teams will need to work through to address those cloud-computing values you often hear hyped by people like me.
In that post, I noted that many organizations had gained an understanding of how server virtualization could be used to abstract software concepts, thus managing them distinctly from the underlying hardware. I also noted, however, that few organizations had made the decision to systematically automate that management.
Channel-V tonight pointed me to an interview by Virtualization Review's Keith Ward of Bogomil Balkansky, VMware's senior director of product marketing. In the interview, Balkansky discusses the upcoming VDC-OS product release, and what it means to the next generation of data centers. He starts with a very familiar theme:
"Henry Ford introduced automation to the manufacturing world," Balkansky says.
"We're transitioning from swinging hammers to pushing buttons," he continues. "The focus becomes on what needs to happen, not spending the majority of your time executing it and making it happen. Ford introduced speed and efficiency and predictability in the (manufacturing) process." Those same elements will characterize VDC-OS, he says.
Balkansky goes on to point out that the very core of the system administrator role will change as a result, an argument that I've been making for some time. Rather than focusing on reactive, tactical operations, the system administrator of the future will "specify the service levels the application requires: availability, security, scalability."
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If you have an interest in the architectures that may very well come to dominate the world's most sophisticated data centers, you should take some time to check out an article in EETimes, entitled "Server makers get Goooogled."
The article, by Rick Merrit, describes new technologies being introduced by Rackable and other companies that are strongly influenced by Google's custom server designs over the last several years.
We're talking cool stuff here. As the article notes:
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